I had an "out of the blue" appraisal today, from the two partnes I work for here. One good and one bad. The bad one had obviously fed the good one with unfair comments about me and my performance. Two major unfair comments were there were adverse comments from a client. That client, I was told, was the 3rd or 4th largest hence most important client to this company! I was surprised to hear that - both re adverse comments and re the importance of that client to this company. Yes, the client is foreign listed, but from my exposure, not really that big, especially if you look at the global conglomerates! Re adverse comments, I responded and it's obvious that the bad partner was embarrassed. I hesitated whether to respond but I thought I should because that's my chance to do so.

I also told them I have no support. I should also have told them that recently, I had to check each page of the photocopy of a document of about 3 lever arch files - and client has to pay for it!!

Anyway, when I told bb re the importance of that client, bb said " that's because they turned away other cases!"

bb is so witty and quick ! I'm lucky to have her.

PS During the "out of the blue" appraisal this morning (there's a one scheduled at the end of this month), the bad one told me I was lucky because they were willing to spend the time and effort to tell me those things. And I was thinking: arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr !!

I found a website of a company that could tailor made holidays in New Zealand. That website also offers a few sample iterneries. One of them is called "Midlife Adventure" and (without admission!), could be a useful reference.

PS Did you notice that I managed to put a link to the words, but not the link to the website addresses??!!

I am in the office and haven't done much since I came back this morning - attended a short internal meeting and dealt with a few administrative matters. That's all.

But on a personal side of things, I managed to fit in a few bits - (i) spoke to my friend here re dinner tonight (ii) organised dinner with two other friends - purpose of which is to introduce them to each other. why? because one of them would start a new job similar to that of the other and want to get some tips. (iii) spoke to our financier re investment (iv) spoke to travel agent re bbmm next trip - yeah! (v) surfed on internet re route to take in New Zealand. This page talks about a food and wine in New Zealand: http://www.newzealand.com/travel/about-nz/culture/new-zealand-wine-and-food/new-zealand-food-and-wine.cfm

And yes, we need to plan to make sure we'll go pass those places - to the extent we can fit them in! I have also found a few driving routes that are of interest. Let me look closer at them and will report later, ok? Very excited even thinking about it.

On the work side, I'm already planning ahead and started doing things that would be due when I'm away - to make sure I don't have to re-schedule bbmm holiday again (yes, it has been postponed for one week because of work, and bb was (as always) very understanding.) And I think she deserves another *smack* !

Deadline for this month was yesterday - and I was cramping badly, but the pain went away soon with her very warm hands and presence ... :)

I'm a very lucky person - have a nice family and her :)

It's going to be New Zealand - yeah! Neither of us has been and other than the hot weather we are slightly concerned, I think we both are looking forward to go there!

We have 2 weeks and we plan to visit both North and South islands. I think I found the website for New Zealand that's equivalent to the aussi one we used earlier this year, with suggested driving route which we took and enjoyed immensely !! Here it is (I'll try doing this as a link that if you click on it, it will bring you to the website, so you don't have to copy and paste. Let's see if it works.):

http://www.newzealand.com/travel/
(No! It's not working. I had it worked a moment ago, then I thought I'll do it again as practice, but I could not get it work again!!!)

PS I just got it to work now, and that makes me happy :) And I feel I have learnt something from bb. She taught me how to do it some time ago, but this is the first time I have put it to practice :)

Noted from her new entry this morning that there's a new personality test result. so I tried it too and have just finished with it. Guess? No?? I've been said to be a "Pure Nerd" - 56 % Nerd, 30% Geek, 39% Dork

I tried putting the link here rather than copy and paste from the website, but the link doesn't work. And I noticed from her entry that she did the copy and paste thing, so the answer must be that you can't just put a link here. So, the result is gonna be copy and paste to here - here's the summary:

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A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

Congratulations!

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At the end of that page, it gives you statistics of those in your age and gender group. But of course, cautious I try to be, true personal information I did not give. (wink!)